Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Plein air painting from my hot rod...

I went to New Castle Commons on the New Hampshire sea coast to do some plein air painting of the ocean today...and by plein air, I mean I wimped out and painted on my lap in the front seat of my hot rod...and by hot rod, I mean my 2005, grey Chevy Equinox tripped out with two baby seats in the back...Nice! Above is my Guerilla pochade box with a 6x8 wood panel...I'm laying in the big shapes as you can see...some ocean and sky. I'm using a simplified pallet, from left to right: Titanium white, Cad Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cad red, Aliz Crimson, Ultra Blue, Cobalt, Viridian, Burnt Sienna and Ivory black...there is a little Liquin in my pallet cup there too. At this point above, I'm only painting with a rag wrapped around my finger and rubbing in color. Brushes come later.This is my default painting location, there is simply so much to paint by the ocean and these Commons have two light houses, a beach, craggy rocks and distant headlands...I took these photos from my new Iphone...if you are familiar with Iphone technology and you happen to be an outdoor painter, you may interested to know that I used a cool App for plein air painters called the Digital View catcher, a compositional view finder for artist.

The small portable pochade box makes painting eazy-peazy. It stores 15 tubes of paint, liquin, pallet cup and even my small brush washer in the storage compartment below...it holds two wet panels and also has a tripod attachment on the bottom. Its perfect for painting a quick study just about anywhere.

If you would like to join me outdoors for plein air painting, I am teaching classes every Tuesday from 1:00 - 4:00, you are welcome to drop in for a session or sign up for a half dozen, I hope you can join us on a coming Tuesday afternoon. We are out there from March through December. We meet from 1:00 to 4:00 at different locations around the New Hampshire sea coast (and sometimes southern Maine). We discuss outdoor painting techniques, materials and artistic principles. Classes are demo and critique based and appropriate for beginners to pros. For more info including weekly painting locations or materials list, see my web sight or click this link: Todd Bonita Plein air painting.

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Wow. I will bet my old Chevy Conversion van would work nicely for keeping me painting inside and out of the wind. :) Used to come in handy down the Cape parked at my favorite beach all day. T.V., changing space, and all the conveniences of home on the road! :)Pat N.